About Hell's Paradise
Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Yuji Kaku. It ran on Shueisha's Shonen Jump+ app and website from January 2018 to January 2021, 127 chapters collected in 13 volumes, and VIZ Media publishes it in English. By August 2018 it was the most popular series on Shonen Jump+, and by January 2024 it had more than 6.5 million copies in circulation. The anime, titled simply Hell's Paradise, is produced by Twin Engine and animated by MAPPA, directed by Kaori Makita with scripts by Akira Kindaichi and music by Yoshiaki Dewa. It has run to 25 episodes over two seasons on TV Tokyo, in 2023 and 2026.
The story is set in Japan's Edo period. Gabimaru, the strongest shinobi of the village of Iwagakure, is on death row because the village chief had him captured when he asked to leave and live quietly with his wife. Execution after execution fails on him, until Sagiri, an executioner of the Yamada Asaemon clan, works out that what keeps him alive is his love for his wife. She offers him a full pardon from the shogun if he can bring back the Elixir of Life from Shinsenkyo, a legendary island southwest of the Ryukyu Kingdom where five earlier expeditions have already been lost. He is one of ten convicts who make the voyage, each paired with a Yamada Asaemon who may execute them if they step out of line.
The island is beautiful and wrong. Its flowers grow out of the samurai who came before, its monsters look like badly copied gods, and at its centre, in Horai, live Lord Tensen, seven immortals who recover from almost any wound. To fight them, convicts and executioners alike have to learn Tao, a life force that depends on balancing strength and weakness, and they have to learn to trust each other. Season 1 follows the expedition across the island and its first losses; season 2 brings the survivors together for a raid on Horai while a second expedition, led by the executioner Shugen and backed by Iwagakure ninja, lands behind them. Critics have praised its action and its characters, and it is often grouped with Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man as shonen's 'dark trio'.
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What the Hell's Paradise Quiz Tests
Our Hell's Paradise quiz covers the anime's two seasons, 25 episodes in all, and stops where season 2 does, partway through the battle for Horai, so nothing in it spoils how the manga ends. Easy levels cover the premise and the main cast: Gabimaru the Hollow and his fire ninjutsu, Sagiri and the Yamada Asaemon, the Bandit King Aza Chobe and his brother Toma, Yuzuriha, Nurugai, blind Shion, and who made the series. The middle levels follow the story in order — the island's strange plants, the Giant of Bizen, Hoko and the regions of the island, the deaths of Tenza and Senta, learning Tao and the tanden, Gabimaru's lost memories, Chobe's regeneration and the second expedition — along with the Tao attributes that decide season 2's fights. The hard levels go to the details: where Kaku's ideas came from, Sagiri's father, Isuzu's brother, Shion's cherry tree and two lines from the anime.
Key Characters
Gabimaru is a shinobi raised to believe he is hollow, an efficient killer with nothing inside, and the series is about how wrong that turns out to be: the one thing he cannot give up is the wish to get home to his wife, Yui. Sagiri, the executioner assigned to watch him, is his counterweight — the lowest-ranked of the Yamada Asaemon, a woman in a clan that doubts she belongs there, and someone who keeps her doubts in plain view instead of pretending she has none. Every convict on the island comes paired with an executioner, and the pairs are the heart of the cast: Yuzuriha, the self-serving kunoichi, and Senta, the reluctant executioner who envies her freedom; Nurugai, the wrongly condemned Sanka girl, and Tenza, who decides she deserves to live; the brothers Aza Chobe and Toma; and the swordsman Gantetsusai with Fuchi, an executioner more interested in anatomy than in executions. Shion, Tenza's blind master, becomes the survivors' leader in season 2. Ranged against all of them are Lord Tensen and their leader, Rien.
Available Quizzes
Hell's Paradise Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Hell's Paradise Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which convict or executioner from Hell's Paradise matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 40 anime including Hell's Paradise. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Gabimaru
Yamada Asaemon Sagiri
Yuzuriha
Aza Chobe
Yamada Asaemon Shion
Hell's Paradise Fun Facts
- The story began as something else entirely. Kaku's first idea for his 'mismatched pairs thrown into an enclosed space' setup was a group of children in a youth detention centre and the lawyers fighting for them; talks with his editor turned it into convicts and executioners on an island.
- From 2016 to 2018 Kaku worked as an assistant to Tatsuki Fujimoto on Fire Punch. On Hell's Paradise, one of his own assistants was Yukinobu Tatsu, who went on to create Dandadan.
- In the official fanbook, Kaku confirmed that the island was inspired by H. G. Wells's novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. Its name, Shinsenkyo, comes from a real garden in Hakone created by Mokichi Okada between 1944 and 1953.
- The Tensen are based on the Eight Immortals of Chinese Taoist mythology, reworked by Kaku into beings that move between yin and yang, female and male forms.
- When Kaku first described Shion to his editor, Hideaki Sakakibara pictured someone like Kazuo Kiriyama from Battle Royale. Shion became a kind teacher instead, and the unhinged personality went to Shugen.
- Kaku made Gabimaru a married man on purpose, something he saw as unusual for a shonen hero, because he wanted his protagonist to have a strong, immediate reason to survive. He has also said that as the themes shifted, Sagiri became the protagonist of the story's second half.
Hell's Paradise Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of Hell's Paradise are there?
Twenty-five, across two seasons. Season 1 has 13 episodes and aired on TV Tokyo from 1 April to 1 July 2023. Season 2 has 12, numbered 14 to 25, and aired from 11 January to 29 March 2026.
Is Hell's Paradise finished?
The manga is: it ran on Shonen Jump+ from January 2018 to January 2021 and ended at 127 chapters in 13 volumes. The anime is not. Its two seasons cover the manga up to roughly chapter 89, ending in the middle of the battle for Horai, and when this guide was checked in October 2026 no third season had been announced.
What order should I watch Hell's Paradise in?
Season 1, then season 2. The episodes are numbered continuously from 1 to 25, so there is nothing to fit in between them. The stage plays, the novels and the video game Jigokuraku: Paradise Battle are separate, and you do not need them to follow the anime.
Where can I watch Hell's Paradise?
Crunchyroll streams the anime outside Asia, with an English dub, and Netflix streams it in much of the Asia-Pacific region. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services. The manga is published in English by VIZ Media.
What is Hell's Paradise about?
In Edo-period Japan, Gabimaru, a ninja on death row, is offered a pardon if he can bring the shogun the Elixir of Life from a mysterious island. He sails there with nine other convicts, each watched by an executioner of the Yamada Asaemon clan, and finds an island full of monsters, people turned into flowers and immortal rulers called Lord Tensen. It is a violent, dark fantasy series about survival, love and learning to trust the people you were meant to fight.
